A total of 28 people from 18 different nationalities have died in an Al-Qaeda attack on a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso.

Armed terrorists seized the Splendid Hotel and a nearby cafe in the capital Ouagadougou after letting off bombs last night.

According to witness Issouf Ouattara, who was at the Cappuccino cafe, a young black woman with dreadlocks and young Arabs entered the cafe shouting Allahu akhbar (Arabic for God is great), before shooting dead around 10 people.

Another witness described general panic, with customers playing dead as the fighters prodded them to see if they moved.

Around 150 people were evacuated from the hotel and cafe, the French ambassador tweeted, and around 33 people were said to be wounded.

This morning special forces took back the building after heavy gunfire, freeing 126 hostages and leaving four attackers dead including an Arab and two black Africans, Burkina Faso’s minister of security said. Two of the attackers were women.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident an Austrian doctor and his wife were reported kidnapped this morning near the country’s border with Mali.

Officials declared the siege of the Splendid officially over but continued to search nearby hotels to see if other extremists were hiding there.

Terrorists targeted the Splendid because it is popular with foreigners including UN staff, saying the attack was a message ‘written by the heroes of Islam with their blood and body parts’, The New York Times reports.